The online environment offers a fertile breeding ground for anti-brand herds of disgruntled
consumers. Firms are often caught off guard by the unpredictability of such herds and, as a
consequence, are forced into a reactive, defensive stance. We conduct a social media analysis
that aims to shed light on the formation, growth, and dissolution of online anti-brand herds. First
we expand on the concept of environmental turbulence to advance core properties unique to
online herd behavior. Next, based on evidence gathered from 40 online anti-brand herd episodes
targeting two prominent firms from the Netherlands, we develop an analytical model to
investigate drivers of herd formation, growth, and dissolution. Finally, combining environmental
turbulence literature with our empirical findings, we derive a novel typology of online anti-brand
herd behaviors, and put forward six propositions to guide theory development in this area.

Debates on the effects of online communication on distance within organizational networks have persisted within extant literature. Early contributions, which focus primarily on geographical distance, have highlighted the negative impact of distance on network evolution and sustenance, alluding to the importance of online communication as a means of nullifying these effects (Caimcross, 2001; Wellman, 2001). These studies have led to optimistic, but also premature, declarations of the ‘death of distance’ (Caimcross, 2001).
More recent works however, have demonstrated that online networks are “to a significant part, digital reflections of pre-existing offline, local networks” (Hage & Noseleit, 2015, p. 4), emphasizing the relevance of distance to network formation. Not only do informal friendship networks have digital counterparts (Hage & Noseleit, 2015), the same can be said for other networks (Takhteyev, Gruzd & Wellman, 2012; Tranos & Nijkamp, 2013), especially that of organizational networks (Recker & Lekse, 2016).

The practice of illegally copying and distributing digital games is
at the heart of one of the most heated and divisive debates in the
international games environment, with stakeholders typically
viewing it as a very positive (pirates) or very negative (the industry,
policy makers). Despite the substantial interest in game piracy,
there is very little objective information available about its
magnitude or its distribution across game titles and game genres.
This paper presents a large-scale analysis of the illegal distribution
of digital game titles, which was conducted by monitoring the
BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol. The sample
includes 173 games and a collection period of three months from
late 2010 to early 2011. A total of 12.6 million unique peers were
identified, making this the largest examination of game piracy via
P2P networks to date. The ten most pirated titles encompass 5.27
million aggregated unique peers alone. In addition to genre, review
scores were found to be positively correlated with the logarithm
of the number of unique peers per game (p<0.05).

Patent trolls (or sharks) are small patent holding individuals or firms who trap R&D intense manufacturers in patent infringement situations in order to receive damage awards for the illegitimate use of their technology. While of great concern to management, their existence and impact for both corporate decision makers and policy makers remains to be fully analyzed from an academic standpoint. In this paper we show why patent sharks can operate profitably, why they are of growing concern, how manufacturers can forearm themselves against them, and which issues policy makers need to address. To do so, we map international indemnification rules with strategic rationales of small patent-holding firms within a game-theoretical model. Our central finding is that the courts’ unrealistic consideration of the trade-offs faced by inadvertent infringers is a central condition for sharks to operate profitably.
Keywords: Patent, patent shark, patent troll, damage award, infringement
JEL Classifications: M00, M11, M21, K00, K11, K33

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This paper presents a critique of Freek Vermeulen’s synthesis of rigor and relevance in
management research, and argues (1) at the first glance, Vermeulen’s papers are very
appealing; (2) but with a closer scrutiny, we can unveil the weak and shaky
foundations of his argument; (3) as a consequence, his solution of ‘adding a second
loop’ to make management research meet dual needs of rigor and relevance is illusory
and merely an applied science fiction; (4) and finally, there are two real contributions
of his papers to the irrelevance debate, but they are not like what we might have
thought.

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A model of trade with several countries where local integration benefits all

Hansen, Bodil O.; Keiding, Hans(København, 2005)

[Flere oplysninger]

[Færre oplysninger]

Resume:

For the study of economic integration, it is costumary to use a three countryworld,
where two of the countries may introduce forms of closer economic cooperation. In
the present model, we follow this tradition but put special emphasis on the role of
credit and entrepreneurship. Our model is of the standard neoclassical type, with the
addition that production takes time and is subject to uncertainty. Also, firms must use
the financial system in order to buy inputs; the cost of credit may differ among countries
and industries, reflecting their basic patterns of uncertainty.
Following the Newbery-Stiglitz approach, we show that in such model we may
exhibit cases of Pareto inferior trade and, in particular, Pareto inferior economic
integration. More specifically, we show that integrating countries of very different
economic size may give rise to adverse effects on welfare, whereas integration of
countries with a more similar economic structure and size tends to have beneficial
effects for the parties.
Keywords: trade, uncertainty, Pareto inferior trade, regional integration.
JEL classification: F11, F15, F34

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This is not a theoretical paper but an application of existing law and economic contract theory to the issue of how to draft a specific kind of contract. It is addressed to practitioners and is intended for practical use. It will be part of a Wiki (as in Wikipedia) for contract drafting, which IACCM (International Association for Contract and Commercial Management) has initiated. The main theoretical aspect of the article concerns the application of the value maximization principle (the Coase theorem) to the drafting of confidentiality agreements. While the article is not theoretical, its prescriptions are open to theoretical dispute; this may especially be the case for the section on the size of damages.

This paper analyzes the consequences of pursuing a less activist Government
employment stabilization policy strategy in Egypt. On the basis of a fairly stylized model we
find that a reduction of the Government’s involvement in the economy along with an
introduction of mild but binding firing regulations in the private sector may lead to a rise in total
employment and to an improvement in Egypt’s trade balance vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

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The paper presents stylized facts about the economic organisation of the film industry, arguing that while we know a lot about production, specialization and internationalization, the complex processes of globalization are still under-researched. The paper concludes with a research agenda of how to address globalization.

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This paper investigates the pricing of step-up bonds, i.e. corporate
bonds with provisions stating that the coupon payments increase as the
credit rating level of the issuer declines. To assess the risk-neutral rating
transition probabilities necessary to price these bonds, we introduce a new
calibration method within the reduced-form rating-based model of Jarrow,
Lando, and Turnbull (1997). We also treat split ratings and adjust for
rating outlook. Step-up bonds have been issued in large amounts in the
European telecom sector, and we find that, through most of the sample,
step-up bonds issued by the two largest issuers have traded at a discount
relative to comparable fixed-coupon bonds from the same issuers. Our
findings cannot be attributed to traditional liquidity factors, and they suggest
that issuing step-up bonds increased the cost of capital for the issuers.
Keywords: defaultable bonds, step-up coupons, rating-based models
JEL classification: G12, G13